THE Director-General of West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM), Prof Akpan Ekpo has stressed that enthronement of effective monetary policies’ regime holds the ace in ensuring improved standard of living in the country.

Speaking in Lagos at the opening ceremony of a three-week course on economic analysis, monetary policy and financial management for staff of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), yesterday, Ekpo pointed out that structural understanding of the economy by financial managers would place the country on a vantage position.

He therefore called for sustenance of collaborative efforts between CBN and various organisations in the country to sharpen the analytical skills and competences of managers in the financial sector to ensure formulation of policies that would engender competent capacity to script workable agenda on monetary issues, by economic planners.

He said: “The recent global economic challenges have made it necessary for organisations involved in economic management to build and strengthen their indigenous capacity for policy making and analysis. This stems from the realisation that effective policy design by economic planners requires that they are adequately equipped with requisite tools and techniques of economic analysis to enable them handle prevailing economic situations.”

“In the overall, what is needed is a strong manpower base to effectively and efficiently ensure the right policy making for the country. If the managers are understands the economy and how best to offer policy advise and be able to engage international institutions, Nigeria will get the best from whatever those institutions are offering.”

He added: “They need to know what these institutions are doing so they would be able to engage and debate with them. If we have good policy it means that there will be improved standard of living, if you manage the economy poorly people will suffer. And so it is our mandate to maintain price stability and ensure inflation is not too high by exposing participants to the day to day workings of the economy with appropriate tools at their disposal.”

He explained that the course would cover recent developments in money market operations, including the response of central banks to the recent financial market turbulence. “In addition it will consider how monetary operations interact with a central bank’s financial stability and regulatory mandates.”